At Dunbarton

For their first bridal camp he chose an island. Long weeks beforehand he
had thought of this place, and set his heart upon it. Once established
in his mind, the thought became a picture that he saw waking and
sleeping. He had stopped at the island many times alone, and in all
seasons; but at this special moment of the year he liked it best. Often
he had added several needless miles to his journey that he might finish
the day at this point, might catch the trout for his supper beside a
certain rock upon its edge, and fall asleep hearing the stream on either
side of him.

Always for him the first signs that he had gained the true world of the
mountains began at the island. The first pine trees stood upon it; the
first white columbine grew in their shade; and it seemed to him that he
always met here the first of the true mountain air--the coolness and the
new fragrance. Below, there were only the cottonwoods, and the knolls
and steep foot-hills with their sage-brush, and the great warm air of
the plains; here at this altitude came the definite change. Out of the
lower country and its air he would urge his horse upward, talking to him
aloud, and promising fine pasture in a little while.

Then, when at length he had ridden abreast of the island pines, he would
ford to the sheltered circle of his camp-ground, throw off the saddle
and blanket from the horse's hot, wet back, throw his own clothes off,
and, shouting, spring upon the horse bare, and with a rope for bridle,
cross with him to the promised pasture. Here there was a pause in the
mountain steepness, a level space of open, green with thick grass.
Riding his horse to this, he would leap off him, and with the flat of
his hand give him a blow that cracked sharp in the stillness and sent
the horse galloping and gambolling to his night's freedom. And while
the animal rolled in the grass, often his master would roll also, and
stretch, and take the grass in his two hands, and so draw his body
along, limbering his muscles after a long ride. Then he would slide
into the stream below his fishing place, where it was deep enough for
swimming, and cross back to his island, and dressing again, fit his rod
together and begin his casting. After the darkness had set in, there
would follow the lying drowsily with his head upon his saddle, the
camp-fire sinking as he watched it, and sleep approaching to the murmur
of the water on either side of him.

So many visits to this island had he made, and counted so many hours of
revery spent in its haunting sweetness, that the spot had come to seem
his own. It belonged to no man, for it was deep in the unsurveyed and
virgin wilderness; neither had he ever made his camp here with any
man, nor shared with any the intimate delight which the place gave him.
Therefore for many weeks he had planned to bring her here after their
wedding, upon the day itself, and show her and share with her his pines
and his fishing rock. He would bid her smell the first true breath of
the mountains, would watch with her the sinking camp-fire, and with her
listen to the water as it flowed round the island.

Until this wedding plan, it had by no means come home to him how deep a
hold upon him the island had taken. He knew that he liked to go there,
and go alone; but so little was it his way to scan himself, his mind, or
his feelings (unless some action called for it), that he first learned
his love of the place through his love of her. But he told her nothing
of it. After the thought of taking her there came to him, he kept his
island as something to let break upon her own eyes, lest by looking
forward she should look for more than the reality.

Hence, as they rode along, when the houses of the town were shrunk to
dots behind them, and they were nearing the gates of the foot-hills, she
asked him questions. She hoped they would find a camp a long way from
the town. She could ride as many miles as necessary. She was not tired.
Should they not go on until they found a good place far enough within
the solitude? Had he fixed upon any? And at the nod and the silence
that he gave her for reply, she knew that he had thoughts and intentions
which she must wait to learn.

They passed through the gates of the foot-hills, following the stream up
among them. The outstretching fences and the widely trodden dust were
no more. Now and then they rose again into view of the fields and houses
down in the plain below. But as the sum of the miles and hours grew,
they were glad to see the road less worn with travel, and the traces of
men passing from sight. The ploughed and planted country, that quilt of
many-colored harvests which they had watched yesterday, lay in another
world from this where they rode now. No hand but nature's had sown these
crops of yellow flowers, these willow thickets and tall cottonwoods.
Somewhere in a passage of red rocks the last sign of wagon wheels was
lost, and after this the trail became a wild mountain trail. But it was
still the warm air of the plains, bearing the sage-brush odor and not
the pine, that they breathed; nor did any forest yet cloak the shapes
of the tawny hills among which they were ascending. Twice the steepness
loosened the pack ropes, and he jumped down to tighten them, lest the
horses should get sore backs. And twice the stream that they followed
went into deep canyons, so that for a while they parted from it. When
they came back to its margin for the second time, he bade her notice how
its water had become at last wholly clear. To her it had seemed clear
enough all along, even in the plain above the town. But now she saw that
it flowed lustrously with flashes; and she knew the soil had changed to
mountain soil. Lower down, the water had carried the slightest cloud
of alkali, and this had dulled the keen edge of its transparence. Full
solitude was around them now, so that their words grew scarce, and when
they spoke it was with low voices. They began to pass nooks and points
favorable for camping, with wood and water at hand, and pasture for the
horses. More than once as they reached such places, she thought he must
surely stop; but still he rode on in advance of her (for the trail
was narrow) until, when she was not thinking of it, he drew rein and
pointed.

"What?" she asked timidly.

"The pines," he answered.

She looked, and saw the island, and the water folding it with ripples
and with smooth spaces The sun was throwing upon the pine boughs a light
of deepening red gold, and the shadow of the fishing rock lay over a
little bay of quiet water and sandy shore. In this forerunning glow of
the sunset, the pasture spread like emerald; for the dry touch of summer
had not yet come near it. He pointed upward to the high mountains which
they had approached, and showed her where the stream led into their
first unfoldings.

"To-morrow we shall be among them," said he.

"Then," she murmured to him, "to-night is here?"

He nodded for answer, and she gazed at the island and understood why he
had not stopped before; nothing they had passed had been so lovely as
this place.

There was room in the trail for them to go side by side; and side by
side they rode to the ford and crossed, driving the packhorses in front
of them, until they came to the sheltered circle, and he helped her down
where the soft pine needles lay. They felt each other tremble, and for a
moment she stood hiding her head upon his breast. Then she looked round
at the trees, and the shores, and the flowing stream, and he heard her
whispering how beautiful it was.

"I am glad," he said, still holding her. "This is how I have dreamed it
would happen. Only it is better than my dreams." And when she pressed
him in silence, he finished, "I have meant we should see our first
sundown here, and our first sunrise."

She wished to help him take the packs from their horses, to make the
camp together with him, to have for her share the building of the fire,
and the cooking. She bade him remember his promise to her that he would
teach her how to loop and draw the pack-ropes, and the swing-ropes
on the pack-saddles, and how to pitch a tent. Why might not the first
lesson be now? But he told her that this should be fulfilled later. This
night he was to do all himself. And he sent her away until he should
have camp ready for them. He bade her explore the island, or take her
horse and ride over to the pasture, where she could see the surrounding
hills and the circle of seclusion that they made.

"The whole world is far from here," he said. And so she obeyed him, and
went away to wander about in their hiding-place; nor was she to return,
he told her, until he called her.

Then at once, as soon as she was gone, he fell to. The packs and saddles
came off the horses, which he turned loose upon the pasture on the main
land. The tent was unfolded first. He had long seen in his mind where it
should go, and how its white shape would look beneath the green of
the encircling pines. The ground was level in the spot he had chosen,
without stones or roots, and matted with the fallen needles of the
pines. If there should come any wind, or storm of rain, the branches
were thick overhead, and around them on three sides tall rocks and
undergrowth made a barrier. He cut the pegs for the tent, and the front
pole, stretching and tightening the rope, one end of it pegged down and
one round a pine tree. When the tightening rope had lifted the canvas to
the proper height from the ground, he spread and pegged down the sides
and back, leaving the opening so that they could look out upon the fire
and a piece of the stream beyond. He cut tufts of young pine and strewed
them thickly for a soft floor in the tent, and over them spread the
buffalo hide and the blankets. At the head he placed the neat sack of
her belongings. For his own he made a shelter with crossed poles and
a sheet of canvas beyond the first pines. He built the fire where its
smoke would float outward from the trees and the tent, and near it he
stood the cooking things and his provisions, and made this first supper
ready in the twilight. He had brought much with him; but for ten minutes
he fished, catching trout enough. When at length she came riding over
the stream at his call, there was nothing for her to do but sit and eat
at the table he had laid. They sat together, watching the last of the
twilight and the gentle oncoming of the dusk. The final after-glow of
day left the sky, and through the purple which followed it came slowly
the first stars, bright and wide apart. They watched the spaces between
them fill with more stars, while near them the flames and embers of
their fire grew brighter. Then he sent her to the tent while he cleaned
the dishes and visited the horses to see that they did not stray from
the pasture. Some while after the darkness was fully come, he rejoined
her. All had been as he had seen it in his thoughts beforehand: the
pines with the setting sun upon them, the sinking camp-fire, and now the
sound of the water as it flowed murmuring by the shores of the island.

The tent opened to the east, and from it they watched together their
first sunrise. In his thoughts he had seen this morning beforehand also:
the waking, the gentle sound of the water murmuring ceaselessly, the
growing day, the vision of the stream, the sense that the world was shut
away far from them. So did it all happen, except that he whispered to
her again:-- "Better than my dreams."

They saw the sunlight begin upon a hilltop; and presently came the sun
itself, and lakes of warmth flowed into the air, slowly filling the
green solitude. Along the island shores the ripples caught flashes from
the sun.

"I am going into the stream," he said to her; and rising, he left her in
the tent. This was his side of the island, he had told her last night;
the other was hers, where he had made a place for her to bathe. When
he was gone, she found it, walking through the trees and rocks to the
water's edge. And so, with the island between them, the two bathed in
the cold stream. When he came back, he found her already busy at their
camp. The blue smoke of the fire was floating out from the trees,
loitering undispersed in the quiet air, and she was getting their
breakfast. She had been able to forestall him because he had delayed
long at his dressing, not willing to return to her unshaven. She looked
at his eyes that were clear as the water he had leaped into, and at his
soft silk neckerchief, knotted with care.

"Do not let us ever go away from here!" she cried, and ran to him as he
came. They sat long together at breakfast, breathing the morning breath
of the earth that was fragrant with woodland moisture and with the
pines. After the meal he could not prevent her helping him make
everything clean. Then, by all customs of mountain journeys, it was time
they should break camp and be moving before the heat of the day. But
first, they delayed for no reason, save that in these hours they so
loved to do nothing. And next, when with some energy he got upon his
feet and declared he must go and drive the horses in, she asked, Why?
Would it not be well for him to fish here, that they might be sure of
trout at their nooning? And though he knew that where they should stop
for noon, trout would be as sure as here, he took this chance for more
delay.

She went with him to his fishing rock, and sat watching him. The rock
was tall, higher than his head when he stood. It jutted out halfway
across the stream, and the water flowed round it in quick foam, and fell
into a pool. He caught several fish; but the sun was getting high, and
after a time it was plain the fish had ceased to rise.

Yet still he stood casting in silence, while she sat by and watched him.
Across the stream, the horses wandered or lay down in their pasture. At
length he said with half a sigh that perhaps they ought to go.

"Ought?" she repeated softly.

"If we are to get anywhere to-day," he answered.

"Need we get anywhere?" she asked.

Her question sent delight through him like a flood. "Then you do not
want to move camp to-day?" said he.

She shook her head.

At this he laid down his rod and came and sat by her. "I am very glad we
shall not go till to-morrow," he murmured.

"Not to-morrow," she said. "Nor next day. Nor any day until we must."
And she stretched her hands out to the island and the stream exclaiming,
"Nothing can surpass this!"

He took her in his arms. "You feel about it the way I do," he almost
whispered. "I could not have hoped there'd be two of us to care so
much."

Presently, while they remained without speaking by the pool, came a
little wild animal swimming round the rock from above. It had not seen
them, nor suspected their presence. They held themselves still, watching
its alert head cross through the waves quickly and come down through
the pool, and so swim to the other side. There it came out on a small
stretch of sand, turned its gray head and its pointed black nose this
way and that, never seeing them, and then rolled upon its back in the
warm dry sand. After a minute of rolling, it got on its feet again,
shook its fur, and trotted away.

Then the bridegroom husband opened his shy heart deep down.

"I am like that fellow," he said dreamily. "I have often done the same."
And stretching slowly his arms and legs, he lay full length upon his
back, letting his head rest upon her. "If I could talk his animal
language, I could talk to him," he pursued. "And he would say to me:
'Come and roll on the sands. Where's the use of fretting? What's the
gain in being a man? Come roll on the sands with me.' That's what he
would say." The Virginian paused. "But," he continued, "the trouble is,
I am responsible. If that could only be forgot forever by you and me!"
Again he paused and went on, always dreamily. "Often when I have camped
here, it has made me want to become the ground, become the water, become
the trees, mix with the whole thing. Not know myself from it. Never
unmix again. Why is that?" he demanded, looking at her. "What is it? You
don't know, nor I don't. I wonder would everybody feel that way here?"

"I think not everybody," she answered.

"No; none except the ones who understand things they can't put words to.
But you did!" He put up a hand and touched her softly. "You understood
about this place. And that's what makes it--makes you and me as we are
now--better than my dreams. And my dreams were pretty good."

He sighed with supreme quiet and happiness, and seemed to stretch his
length closer to the earth. And so he lay, and talked to her as he had
never talked to any one, not even to himself. Thus she learned secrets
of his heart new to her: his visits here, what they were to him, and why
he had chosen it for their bridal camp. "What I did not know at all,"
he said, "was the way a man can be pining for--for this--and never guess
what is the matter with him."

When he had finished talking, still he lay extended and serene; and she
looked down at him and the wonderful change that had come over him,
like a sunrise. Was this dreamy boy the man of two days ago? It seemed
a distance immeasurable; yet it was two days only since that wedding
eve when she had shrunk from him as he stood fierce and implacable. She
could look back at that dark hour now, although she could not speak of
it. She had seen destruction like sharp steel glittering in his eyes.
Were these the same eyes? Was this youth with his black head of hair in
her lap the creature with whom men did not trifle, whose hand knew how
to deal death? Where had the man melted away to in this boy? For as she
looked at him, he might have been no older than nineteen to-day. Not
even at their first meeting--that night when his freakish spirit was
uppermost--had he looked so young. This change their hours upon the
island had wrought, filling his face with innocence.

By and by they made their nooning. In the afternoon she would have
explored the nearer woods with him, or walked up the stream. But since
this was to be their camp during several days, he made it more complete.
He fashioned a rough bench and a table; around their tent he built a
tall wind-break for better shelter in case of storm; and for the fire he
gathered and cut much wood, and piled it up. So they were provided for,
and so for six days and nights they stayed, finding no day or night long
enough.

Once his hedge of boughs did them good service, for they had an
afternoon of furious storm. The wind rocked the pines and ransacked the
island, the sun went out, the black clouds rattled, and white bolts of
lightning fell close by. The shower broke through the pine branches and
poured upon the tent. But he had removed everything inside from where it
could touch the canvas and so lead the water through, and the rain ran
off into the ditch he had dug round the tent. While they sat within,
looking out upon the bounding floods and the white lightning, she saw
him glance at her apprehensively, and at once she answered his glance.

"I am not afraid," she said. "If a flame should consume us together now,
what would it matter?"

And so they sat watching the storm till it was over, he with his face
changed by her to a boy's, and she leavened with him.

When at last they were compelled to leave the island, or see no more of
the mountains, it was not a final parting. They would come back for the
last night before their journey ended. Furthermore, they promised each
other like two children to come here every year upon their wedding day,
and like two children they believed that this would be possible. But
in after years they did come, more than once, to keep their wedding day
upon the island, and upon each new visit were able to say to each other,
"Better than our dreams."

For thirty days by the light of the sun and the camp-fire light they
saw no faces except their own; and when they were silent it was all
stillness, unless the wind passed among the pines, or some flowing water
was near them. Sometimes at evening they came upon elk, or black-tailed
deer, feeding out in the high parks of the mountains; and once from the
edge of some concealing timber he showed her a bear, sitting with an
old log lifted in its paws. She forbade him to kill the bear, or any
creature that they did not require. He took her upward by trail and
canyon, through the unfooted woods and along dwindling streams to their
headwaters, lakes lying near the summit of the range, full of trout,
with meadows of long grass and a thousand flowers, and above these the
pinnacles of rock and snow.

They made their camps in many places, delaying several days here, and
one night there, exploring the high solitudes together, and sinking deep
in their romance. Sometimes when he was at work with their horses, or
intent on casting his brown hackle for a fish, she would watch him with
eyes that were fuller of love than of understanding. Perhaps she never
came wholly to understand him; but in her complete love for him she
found enough. He loved her with his whole man's power. She had listened
to him tell her in words of transport, "I could enjoy dying"; yet she
loved him more than that. He had come to her from a smoking pistol, able
to bid her farewell--and she could not let him go. At the last white-hot
edge of ordeal, it was she who renounced, and he who had his way.
Nevertheless she found much more than enough, in spite of the sigh that
now and again breathed through her happiness when she would watch him
with eyes fuller of love than of understanding.

They could not speak of that grim wedding eve for a long while after;
but the mountains brought them together upon all else in the world and
their own lives. At the end they loved each other doubly more than at
the beginning, because of these added confidences which they exchanged
and shared. It was a new bliss to her to know a man's talk and thoughts,
to be given so much of him; and to him it was a bliss still greater to
melt from that reserve his lonely life had bred in him. He never would
have guessed so much had been stored away in him, unexpressed till now.
They did not want to go to Vermont and leave these mountains, but the
day came when they had to turn their backs upon their dream. So
they came out into the plains once more, well established in their
familiarity, with only the journey still lying between themselves and
Bennington.

"If you could," she said, laughing. "If only you could ride home like
this."

"With Monte and my six-shooter?" he asked. "To your mother?"

"I don't think mother could resist the way you look on a horse."

But he said "It this way she's fearing I will come."

"I have made one discovery," she said. "You are fonder of good clothes
than I am."

He grinned. "I cert'nly like 'em. But don't tell my friends. They would
say it was marriage. When you see what I have got for Bennington's
special benefit, you--why, you'll just trust your husband more than
ever."

She undoubtedly did. After he had put on one particular suit, she arose
and kissed him where he stood in it.

"Bennington will be sorrowful," he said. "No wild-west show, after all.
And no ready-made guy, either." And he looked at himself in the glass
with unbidden pleasure.

"How did you choose that?" she asked. "How did you know that homespun
was exactly the thing for you?"

"Why, I have been noticing. I used to despise an Eastern man because his
clothes were not Western. I was very young then, or maybe not so very
young, as very--as what you saw I was when you first came to Bear Creek.
A Western man is a good thing. And he generally knows that. But he has
a heap to learn. And he generally don't know that. So I took to watching
the Judge's Eastern visitors. There was that Mr. Ogden especially, from
New Yawk--the gentleman that was there the time when I had to sit up all
night with the missionary, yu' know. His clothes pleased me best of all.
Fit him so well, and nothing flash. I got my ideas, and when I knew I
was going to marry you, I sent my measure East--and I and the tailor are
old enemies now."

Bennington probably was disappointed. To see get out of the train merely
a tall man with a usual straw hat, and Scotch homespun suit of a
rather better cut than most in Bennington--this was dull. And his
conversation--when he indulged in any--seemed fit to come inside the
house.

Mrs. Flynt took her revenge by sowing broadcast her thankfulness that
poor Sam Bannett had been Molly's rejected suitor. He had done so much
better for himself. Sam had married a rich Miss Van Scootzer, of the
second families of Troy; and with their combined riches this happy
couple still inhabit the most expensive residence in Hoosic Falls.

But most of Bennington soon began to say that Molly s cow-boy could be
invited anywhere and hold his own. The time came when they ceased to
speak of him as a cow-boy, and declared that she had shown remarkable
sense. But this was not quite yet.

Did this bride and groom enjoy their visit to her family? Well--well,
they did their best. Everybody did their best, even Sarah Bell. She said
that she found nothing to object to in the Virginian; she told Molly so.
Her husband Sam did better than that. He told Molly he considered that
she was in luck. And poor Mrs. Wood, sitting on the sofa, conversed
scrupulously and timidly with her novel son-in-law, and said to Molly
that she was astonished to find him so gentle. And he was undoubtedly
fine-looking; yes, very handsome. She believed that she would grow to
like the Southern accent. Oh, yes! Everybody did their best; and, dear
reader, if ever it has been your earthly portion to live with a number
of people who were all doing their best, you do not need me to tell you
what a heavenly atmosphere this creates.

And then the bride and groom went to see the old great-aunt over at
Dunbarton.

Their first arrival, the one at Bennington, had been thus: Sam Bell
had met them at the train, and Mrs. Wood, waiting in her parlor, had
embraced her daughter and received her son-in-law. Among them they had
managed to make the occasion as completely mournful as any family party
can be, with the window blinds up. "And with you present, my dear," said
Sam Bell to Sarah, "the absence of a coffin was not felt."

But at Dunbarton the affair went off differently. The heart of the
ancient lady had taught her better things. From Bennington to Dunbarton
is the good part of a day's journey, and they drove up to the gate in
the afternoon. The great-aunt was in her garden, picking some August
flowers, and she called as the carriage stopped, "Bring my nephew here,
my dear, before you go into the house."

At this, Molly, stepping out of the carriage, squeezed her husband's
hand. "I knew that she would be lovely," she whispered to him. And then
she ran to her aunt's arms, and let him follow. He came slowly, hat in
hand.

The old lady advanced to meet him, trembling a little, and holding out
her hand to him. "Welcome, nephew," she said. "What a tall fellow you
are, to be sure. Stand off, sir, and let me look at you."

The Virginian obeyed, blushing from his black hair to his collar.

Then his new relative turned to her niece, and gave her a flower. "Put
this in his coat, my dear," she said. "And I think I understand why you
wanted to marry him."

After this the maid came and showed them to their rooms. Left alone in
her garden, the great-aunt sank on a bench and sat there for some time;
for emotion had made her very weak.

Upstairs, Molly, sitting on the Virginian's knee, put the flower in his
coat, and then laid her head upon his shoulder.

"I didn't know old ladies could be that way," he said. "D' yu' reckon
there are many?"

"Oh, I don't know," said the girl. "I'm so happy!"

Now at tea, and during the evening, the great-aunt carried out her plans
still further. At first she did the chief part of the talking herself.
Nor did she ask questions about Wyoming too soon. She reached that in
her own way, and found out the one thing that she desired to know. It
was through General Stark that she led up to it.

"There he is," she said, showing the family portrait. "And a rough time
he must have had of it now and then. New Hampshire was full of fine
young men in those days. But nowadays most of them have gone away to
seek their fortunes in the West. Do they find them, I wonder?"

"Yes, ma'am. All the good ones do."

"But you cannot all be--what is the name?--Cattle Kings."

"That's having its day, ma'am, right now. And we are getting ready for
the change--some of us are."

"And what may be the change, and when is it to come?"

"When the natural pasture is eaten off," he explained. "I have seen that
coming a long while. And if the thieves are going to make us drive
our stock away, we'll drive it. If they don't, we'll have big pastures
fenced, and hay and shelter ready for winter. What we'll spend in
improvements, we'll more than save in wages. I am well fixed for the
new conditions. And then, when I took up my land, I chose a place where
there is coal. It will not be long before the new railroad needs that."

Thus the old lady learned more of her niece's husband in one evening
than the Bennington family had ascertained during his whole sojourn with
them. For by touching upon Wyoming and its future, she roused him to
talk. He found her mind alive to Western questions: irrigation, the
Indians, the forests; and so he expanded, revealing to her his wide
observation and his shrewd intelligence. He forgot entirely to be shy.
She sent Molly to bed, and kept him talking for an hour. Then she showed
him old things that she was proud of, "because," she said, "we, too, had
something to do with making our country. And now go to Molly, or you'll
both think me a tiresome old lady."

"I think--" he began, but was not quite equal to expressing what he
thought, and suddenly his shyness flooded him again.

"In that case, nephew," said she, "I'm afraid you'll have to kiss me
good night."

And so she dismissed him to his wife, and to happiness greater than
either of them had known since they had left the mountains and come to
the East. "He'll do," she said to herself, nodding.

Their visit to Dunbarton was all happiness and reparation for the
doleful days at Bennington The old lady gave much comfort and advice
to her niece in private, and when they came to leave, she stood at the
front door holding both their hands a moment.

"God bless you, my dears," she told them. "And when you come next time,
I'll have the nursery ready."

And so it happened that before she left this world, the great-aunt was
able to hold in her arms the first of their many children.

Judge Henry at Sunk Creek had his wedding present ready. His growing
affairs in Wyoming needed his presence in many places distant from his
ranch, and he made the Virginian his partner. When the thieves prevailed
at length, as they did, forcing cattle owners to leave the country or be
ruined, the Virginian had forestalled this crash. The herds were driven
away to Montana. Then, in 1889, came the cattle war, when, after putting
their men in office, and coming to own some of the newspapers, the
thieves brought ruin on themselves as well. For in a broken country
there is nothing left to steal.

But the railroad came, and built a branch to that land of the
Virginian's where the coal was. By that time he was an important man,
with a strong grip on many various enterprises, and able to give his
wife all and more than she asked or desired.

Sometimes she missed the Bear Creek days, when she and he had ridden
together, and sometimes she declared that his work would kill him.
But it does not seem to have done so. Their eldest boy rides the horse
Monte; and, strictly between ourselves, I think his father is going to
live a long while.